When he came home from college for summer vacation, George Hathaway Bixby loved smoking cigars and talking for hours with his father, the pioneering Jotham Bixby, who is affectionately known as the “Father of Long Beach.”

In her book on Fanny Bixby Spencer, a younger sister of George, Marcia Lee Harris said Fanny “saw how her father loved George, the firstborn child. They were constantly in each other’s company.”

This strong bond between father and son helped propel George into a position of prominence in the growing area of Long Beach, including the area to be known as Bixby Knolls.

It was Jotham Bixby who acquired the huge Rancho Los Cerritos land grant in the 1860s, much of which later became the city of Long Beach. On July 4, 1864, George Bixby was born, the first child of Jotham and Margaret Hathaway Bixby.

He graduated from Yale University with a degree in bachelor of arts in 1886 and immediately returned to California and plunged into the family business.

About 1901, he became vice president and manager of the Bixby Land Company and the Palos Verdes Company, both of which were headed by his father.

An early history of Long Beach movers and shakers said young George “had before him constantly a vision of the wonderful possibilities of Long Beach, and his chief efforts were directed towards the development and upbuilding of this city.”

He helped develop the Port of Long Beach along with other business interests. When his father died in 1917, he became president of the Jotham Bixby Company and the Bixby Land Company.

In fact, reports at the time said George applied himself so intensely that it placed a heavy demand on my physically and he died of a heart attack at the age of 58 in 1922, just as Long Beach started booming after the discovery of oil in Signal Hill.

It was George Bixby who built a mansion in 1890 on La Linda Drive in the Virginia Country Club area. That home for the first time in a quarter-century has been placed on the market for almost $3.2 million.

In addition to its architectural splendor, the home is in an area known in urban legend lore as Munchkinland, presumably built for “little people” somehow connected to actors who played in the movie, “The Wizard of Oz.”

Blair Cohn, executive director of the Bixby Knolls Business Improvement Association, said people still talk about Munchkinland or Midgetland, but the genesis of the rumor remains a mystery.

Jean Bixby Smith, a descendant of the Bixby pioneer family, said she has been in the home several times.

“The owner has been very generous in using the home for fundraising for nonprofits,” she said. “At Christmas time they really went all out in decorating. It was a labor of love for him.”

In the 1920s the heirs of Jotham and George began developing the Bixby land holdings which were formerly devoted to bean fields and dairy production.

The area became known as Bixby Knolls, named after Jotham Bixby, the Father of Long Beach who long ago had long smoking sessions with his favorite son, George.

Rich Archbold is public editor of the Press-Telegram. Archbold, who arrived in Long Beach in 1978, was the longtime executive editor of the Press-Telegram and managing editor before that. He writes a weekly column and coordinates the Press-Telegram's myriad community connections.